The 10 Oldest Still-Inhabited Cities

1. Foreigner1
   July 11th, 2009 at 12:41 pm

   12.000 years!!! Now that is old.
   Where I live, the oldest cities go back some 3.000 years max.
   12.000 years ago around these parts half of my country was still covered with an icelayer and the other half was tundra where stone-age tribes roamed...

2. Noelegy
   July 11th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

   There is the old saying that 100 years is a long time in America, and 100 miles is a long distance in Europe.

   I grew up in a house that was built in 1900. In that part of the country, that's an oldish house. But it always used to fascinate me to go to the cemetery and see stones dating back to the 1870s. Again, this was Texas, so that's old. But you can drive all day and still be in Texas.

3. Justin
   July 11th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

   I'm surprised Istanbul/Constantinople didn't make the list.

4. Xinavera
   July 11th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

   Now that's neat-o! 12,000 years! Wow!

5. Marge
   July 12th, 2009 at 6:00 am

   Justin - because Constantinople is a relatively late foundation? On the scale of Jericho, certainly. It only dates from the 7th century BC.

6. ted
   July 12th, 2009 at 7:47 am

   Constantinople was founded in the early 4th century AD. Can't remember what may have been there before it.

   Kind of surprise to see one from North America and none from China on the list, the former because it would be difficult for us to determine whether it was continuously occupied, the latter, because I thought there were older cities than Athens there.

7. Frink
   July 13th, 2009 at 4:44 am

   A settlement by the name of Byzantium - later co-opted as the name of the eastern part of the Roman empire.

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